Ellen Percy; or, The Memoirs of an Actress — page 218: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

i a ee ELLEN PERCY; OB, THE MEMOIRS OF AN ACTRESS. ' anguish of that interview! —the mingled re- proaches and entreaties, the upbraidings and the prayers, the impassioned remonstrances and pio- testations, with which I was assailed on Angelo’s part, and against which I had to battle! But being the victim of what I conceived to be my duty towards my mother, I performed that duty resolutely ; and Angelo, giving me back my vows, left me. He was broken-hearted: I was fortified with the calmness—or at least the strength which belongs only to despair itself. The marriage took place: I accompanied the Count of Carboni to the altar; and as I had sacrificed all my tenderest and best feelings at the bidding of a mother, I was now prepared to make a similar sacrifice in the performance of my duty towards a husband. I was glad therefore when he bore me to his chateau in the southern part of Tuscany, at a distance from those scenes where I had first met Angelo, and where there might be a probability that I should encounter him again.” Here Beatrice paused; and we all three con- templated her with an illimitable compassion as we thus heard from her own lips the immense cruelty of that sacrifice which she had been com- pelled to make of all the best and tenderest feel- ings of her heart. “If I had subsequently proved really guilty,” continued Beatrice, “rest assured that I should not now be culpable of so mean and base an act as to attempt the extenuation of my own crime by depreciating the disposition and character of my husband. But as I am innocent, and as I wish that the truth only shouid be told—yet, at the same time, told in its fullest details—I need not hesitate to speak frankly with respect to him to whom my fate was linked. I found him selfish in his disposition, jealous without a cause, and anxious to keep me under his constant supervision—almost a close prisoner within the walls of bis chateau. That he loved me to a certain extent, I do not deny: but it was a love after his own fashion— selfish and egotistical. It was a mere pride and vanity in the possession of a young wife whose personal appearance and whose mental accomplish- ments were not perhaps of a very inferior order. Thus he lavished upon me costly gems and bade me deck myself in the richest raiment: yet if any one of his guests accosted me with a smile or a compliment, a shade would lower upon Carboni’s features. When, a few months after my marriage, you and I again met, dear sister, at Florence, on the occasion of our mother’s death, you asked me if I were happy; and I replied in the affirmative. I did not choose to give utterance to a single syl- lable of complaint: for such complaining would have implied regret for the step that I had taken —and you might have fancied, my dear sister, that I still longingly cherished the image of An- gelo Marano. And besides, apart from those considerations, I was too proud to confess even to @ sister that I experienced unhappiness as the re- sult of that very step which I had self-sufficiently proclaimed to be the resigned acceptation of my destiny. Thus, though I spoke falsely to you, it 205 Indian river conceal the hideous monsters and reptiles which lurk in its dark depths— so, too often in this world, does the sunshine of smiles upon the countenance hide the vulture-talons which are tearing at the heart’s core.” “Poor Beatrice!” murmured the Marchioness, wiping the tears from her eyes: while I also was deeply affected—and the Marquis of Campanella dashed his hand athwart his brow. “T now come,” resumed Beatrice, after a long pause, during which she had some difficulty to conquer her emotions,—“I now come to that memorable date in the month of September of last year,—a date which is impressed upon my brain asif stamped there with a searing iron, and wrii- ten upon my heart as if traced in lines of inef- faceable blood! Oh! heaven protect all ye threo who now listen to me, from the experience of even one tithe of the horrors which I have gone through! We have heard of people’s hair turn- ing white in a single night—how young men and women have in the course of a few hours assumed all the hoariness of age, when the feelings have been most tensely wrung and the heart has known whole centuries of agony condensed into the space of as many minutes. How my hair should have retained its youthful hue after all I have suffered —how my brain should have kept ifs reason after the frightful shocks it has sustained—indeed how it is possible that I should be here alive to tell this tale, when I have endured the tortures of cruci- fixion itself—that crucifixion of the soul in com. parison with which all physical agoniés sink into insignificance—how all this has happened, I say, heaven itself can alone tell! Yet it is so. Oh! pardon this horrible preface. I see that I am har- rowing your own feelings: but it is natural that the reminiscences of the past should give a fright- ful energy to my words!” And there was an awful, a terrific, a galvanic power in the language which Beatrice was using. It seemed to strike upon the ear with the din of a thousand storms, and to sweep through the brain with the violence of countless hurricanes. I came pouring over the very heart itself as if with @ rushing tide of burning lava; and I, as well as the other two listeners, sat gazing appalled and horror-stricken at everything that we thus heard, “Tt was in the month of September, as I have said,” continued Beatrice, now speaking in a gentler tone, “and on one of those delicious italian evenings when there is just 4 sufliciency of the freshening breeze to subdue the sultriness which a glorious day has left behind—I was walking with the Count of Carboni through a grove in the vicinage of the chateau. He was conversing in his wonted egotistical style—of his adventures in foreign lands—of the prowess with which he, single-handed, had oft defended himself against banditti; and as usual likewise he was ad- dressing me in my own English tongue—though, as you are aware, my dear sister, I can speak the 'Italian language with as much facility as the other. Presently we beheld a domestic approach- ing ; and he bore a letter which he said had just was = venial offence: it was in the performance of{ been delivered by a courier, and which he was de- apart of the duty which I conceived that I owed ' to my husband. Yes—I placed as it were flowers upon my lips, when unseen thorns were piercing my heart. But, Ohi as the sunny waters of an sired to place without delay in his lord’s hand. The Count read it, and intormed me that its con- tents reported the favourable issue of a lawsuit, in which, as you may recollect, he was engaged at —E es - = oe LO LLL LL LL LL LLL CL I I a i ee CORnNIELOO@ cS Com